Either a crawl space with a 'tude, or something that probably should at least have screens all around - letting you still peer out, but keeping snakes, etc. out as well!

'lucy' is right.
In the northern part of the country, your hole would be called a crawl space, for minimal storage and for access to plumbing and electrical.
Up here we have to go down into the ground to support our houses because the winter cold freezes the ground from 3'to 4' deep. Our house supports need to go lower than that to keep the houses from racking.
A basement would need to have enough height to stand up, so you have a 'crawl space'. Our crawl space ceilings have insulation in them. No snakes, but mice and squirrels sometimes if they aren't well closed in.

The secret door part recalled a large home a carpenter friend of mine did that included a secret second floor panel that covered stairs to a basement tunnel into a nearby hillside. (At least, the owner didn't have him executed when it was finished, a la the stonemasons of the Pharaohs.)

Thanks for the info ---- I believe we will have the 4 sides of this hole brought up to meet the bottom of the floor joists and use it for extra support (like piers but better) as we are starting a remodel of the kitchen and bath which is right above this tube--crawl space hole. By bringing the height up, we will stop any ground water or snakes from falling in the hole. Once again thanks for the info.

in a circa 1920's house in your region, it may have originally been intended as a storm cellar for tornado's

Be sure to slope the ground away from the walls that you extend so that rain off the roof goes out into your yard, not into the sides of the 'foundation', the poured concrete walls of your hole.

Thanks again for the info. Lazypup---I thought it might be a storm shelter also but if a tornado tore the house off the foundation above your head, you'd be exposed like a big dog. If it had a concrete top and someway to close it behind you after getting in the hole, it would make a great shelter, But I think, I'd have to drag my wife down with a "come along" before she'd get in that hole.
Jegr---this hole is a considerable distance from the outside walls of the house. The outside walls of the house sit on a solid 12" concrete runner that was dug in the ground about 3 feet and is exposed above ground about 3 feet. It has 6 18" X 24" vent holes in the foundation runner spread evenly around the house. The interior floor joists are on piers and beam. So, if I'm down in the hole standing up, I can see anyone walking around outside if they go past one of the vent holes. The vent holes are flush with the ground level which I believe was a mistake. A good screen for each vent hole and moving the vent holes up a little should keep snakes and water from getting under the house. I hope, I think, maybe

Maybe a cistern?

I was just going to suggest that, because when my parent's home was built city water didn't run to it and they even had a carriage house for horses under their barn located within the city limits. Under one of their floors is just such a thing, a round hole in the ground lined with block. It was a cistern where the rainwater ran off their roof to fill it through conduits. It's now filled and was only accessible through a crawl space. But, I always found it spooky.

I had smaller but similar concrete pit like this in my house that was built in 1921. It was for the hand pump that had piping that went out to the well. Several years later after an electric pump was installed, the hole in the floor above the concrete pit was covered over.

Another thought comes to mind here. Having lived in Corpus Christi and studied refrigeration & Air Conditioning at DeL Mar Tech in Corpus the thought comes to me that Dupont did not invent Freon until about 1925 and although there was some domestic refrigeration that used an ammonia system prior to that, they were few and far between. In addition, most rural areas did not have access to commercial electricity until the late 20's or early 30's and in some regions even into the early 40's. Prior to that food was stored by smoking, pickling, commercial and home canning and dry stores. That room is below grade which would take advantage of the geothermal subsoil temperature, directly under the kitchen and well ventilated. It may have originally been used as a storage larder for food stores.

lazypup
I think you're right. I finally convinced my wife to go down in the hole with me and she said it's use was exactly as you stated. There is some shelving (like open kitchen cabinets) that look original to the house that are installed above the hole and off to one side. They are attached to the floor joists overhead and could have been used for storage. I thought the cabinets were for storing your tools. My wife said it was for food.
Steve in --- there is an old well about 20 feet from this hole that appears to still have the rods in it. Could have been a hand pump or maybe a windmill system. If it was a windmill, it's been torn down for years as there is a pecan tree growing real close to the casing that has to be pretty old.

I immediately thought of food storage. We came across something similar to that in a house that still had glass jars of things-- as in food. Some of it was recognizable, some of it wasn't! When we were hauling the jars up, one got dropped-- and everyone RAN. They were afraid it would smell... similar to rotten eggs. It didn't smell at all. Everyone decided there wasn't enough beer in the state of Iowa to be able to try it though!

The home I lived in before this was an old farmhouse built in the 1890s. To say food storage occured in the cellar was an understatement. We had a spring on property and it was diverted into the basement into a trough and ran the length of the wall in one room and then out of the cellar. My father identified it immediately as a place one held dairy products. The milk and butter were put in crocks and submerged into the spring water in the trough. Springs stay the same temp year round.

Thanks for all the postings - I thought about a cold cellar, we have them here in NE, but don't know enough about the Texas climate to understand whether it would work in the same way. Really interesting reading.
I wondered about the size of the access hole - how easy would it be to get down and back up when you were carrying food?
You may find you'd like to use it again! save on your energy bills?

I grew up on a dairy farm in N.E.Ohio. We had a huge old farmhouse with 7BR and a #2 galvanized tub and chamber pots for a bathroom, + the little house out back...LOL

The basement had a dirt floor and stone walls. There was two 4'x4'x25' bins, one along the east wall and the second running parallel with a 3' walkway where we stored 10tons of potatoes + pumpkins, squash, and apples. A row of 18 fifty gallon barrels filled with apple cider, which provided sweet cider for about 4 to 6 weeks, then hard cider for the men all winter & spring and apple vinegar for the canning season the next year. The south wall had shelves where we stored 2000 mason canning jars filled with every fruit and veggie imaginable + about 10 varieties of pickles and home canned pork sausage balls. Huge smoked hams (35-40lbs) hung on hooks from the ceiling along with sides of bacon and smoked sausages. Every morning when we finished milking the cows we would bring a 5gallon pail of fresh whole milk to the house (6-8% butterfat).

AT the barn we had a small masonary building called the Milk house. In the milk house there was a pit 4' wide, 3'deep and 14' long with a pipe coming in from the spring on one end and a drain pipe on the opposite end. We stored up to 18 milk cans of milk in that pit overnite, then after the milking in the morning we hauled all the milk cans to a local dairy. We didn't have need of a butter churn because the dairy gave us 4lbs of butter every day free. (I used to love riding the truck to the dairy because we could sneak in the freezers and grab an ice cream bar..LOL)

Twenty loaves of bread were baked every Thursday along with a couple pies and yeast dinner rolls.

Until I was 13 years old we didn't even have a refrigerator and didn't see any need of getting one.

Now the doomsday profits would tell you that all that fresh milk, smoked meats and non-refrigerated food will kill you, but I am 60yrs old and never even saw a doctor from the time i discharged out of the Air Force in 1972 until two months ago. My Grandfather was 68 when he passed away, worked the farm with horses every day, and he had never been to a doctor in his life. go figure!

A friend of mine recently returned from a trip to the UK. He showed me some pictures of a similar arrangement. A simple trap door in the floor of the kitchen with a set of spiral concrete stairs to the concrete "cellar". However this arrangement was the Wine Cellar. The walls were all neatly lined with Wines, ports and the like. The hatch made it easily accessible from the Kitchen and the subterranean arrangement was perfect conditions for the owners wine. Very cool arrangement.

Since Prohibition was from 1920 - 1933, I wonder if your "cellar" was one homeowners solution to the "dry years"

Diane

Lazypup
After reading your post, I don't know which direction to run. All I know is ---I've gotta find something to eat---it made me hungry thinking about all that butter, homemade bread and huge hanging smoked hams. Wow what a time to grow up. I'm 59 and was discharged out of the Air Force in 1971.
Thanks everyone for the help---and I just might store--hide some of my good wine down there.

I vote dual purpose: storm shelter and food storage.